Women lose landmark legal fight against state pension age rise - MSE News

ArcticRoll

Oh sorry Roddy haha!

EDIT: I've edited the post Pollycat posted so it's not aimed at you lol!

Triumph13

The best analogy I can think of for WASPI's idea of inequality is this. Imagine you have three kids. You buy the first one two presents for their birthday, but then you run into financial difficulties and can only afford one present each from now on. You take middle child to one side and carefully explain the situation and why it means that she, and her younger sibling will only get one present each.
If your middle child is like a WASPI member they have a screaming fit and complain that it's not fair because big sister got two presents. You have to give her two presents or it's just not fair! You explain that if you did that then you wouldn't be able to buy any presents for her little sister. "I don't care! Big sister got two so I have to have two! Little sister can have none, that's not my problem, I have to get as much as big sister or it's just not fair! Wah!"

Pollycat

The best analogy I can think of is:
I'm female.
I have a twin brother.
We work at the same place doing the same job, earning the same salary, we pay the same NI contributions.
I get my state pension at age 60.
My brother has to wait until he's 65.

How can anyone think that's fair?
How can anyone (even Diane Abbott) think that is equality?

Re the post from Triumph 13:
I do believe some (if not most) WASPI women are selfish and as long as they get 'their dues', they don't care about anyone else.
You only have to consider the remit of their campaign.
'born on or before 31/12/1959, you get your dues.
Born on or after 1/1/1960? Tough.

I have no doubt that the state pension equalisation has hit some women hard.
But nowhere near all the ones who say it has.

Triumph13

I think we all agree that there are women in their 60s finding it hard to work due to illness, etc whose life would have been easier if they could get their SP at 60. I have sympathy for them, exactly the same as I do for men in the same position. It is essential that society has a safety net for those of either gender who, through no fault of their own, can't support themselves and a civilised society needs to provide appropriate, means-tested support for people in this situation - without discouraging those who are or should be able to support themselves from doing so.
Unfortunately WASPI categorically rule out any needs-based 'solution'. In their view every one of them, no matter how rich, have to be treated as well as earlier cohorts or it 'isn't fair'. Ruling out any means testing makes every tale of hardship they tell self-serving humbug.

ArcticRoll

This is the thing that I didn't understand. Why is asking women to work until their 65 or 66 utterly outrageous but asking men to is something absolutely nobody batted an eyelid at?

Bogof_Babe

The weaker sex?

I know that's old hat and likely to earn you a thump in the solar plexus from a large proportion of ladies, but it is a biological fact that most women could not lift the same weight as most men, or jump the same height, or throw a javelin the same distance.

[waits for someone to come along with a load of statistics proving otherwise... :wave: ]

molerat

ArcticRoll wrote: »

This is the thing that I didn't understand. Why is asking women to work until their 65 or 66 utterly outrageous but asking men to is something absolutely nobody batted an eyelid at?

It is not outrageous to ask women generally to work until they are 65, it is only outrageous to ask women born in the 1950s to work until they are 65. The campaign had nothing to do with equality, it was all about a group of entitled women who were outraged that they were not getting what someone else got. They do not care what anyone else but their particular cohort would or would not get.


I see the SNP are now using it as an Indy issue, obviously trying to grab a few more Yes votes for the second in a lifetime neverendum https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/14773/uk-government-has-effectively-robbed-women-snp-calls-reversal-waspi-policy

“With the lowest state pension in the developed world and galling pension injustice for 1950s women, it’s clear that the UK government cannot be trusted to deliver for our pensioners. Only with the full powers of independence can pension justice be delivered for Scotland’s pensioners.”

colsten

ArcticRoll wrote: »

They are treated the same as anyone else now.

They are treated the same as men their age but they still have an advantage over younger people. These younger people will be paying the state pension of the WASPI, with their own state pension age often being 67 or even 68. As several people have commented, the WASPI couldn't care less about equality for those younger folk. Their demands are disgusting, really.

I should add that I was born in the 1950s myself and I am female. I've never once been tempted to become a WASPI, let alone join one of their rival campaigns. The ignorance and limitless selfishness of those women is embarrassing, to say the least.

colsten

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

In my case, we were automatically enrolled in the company scheme at age 25, and in those heady early days we didn't even have to make contributions. It all sounded good so why would we delve into the implications? We were far too busy doing our jobs and running our homes. The scheme became contributory in the 80s, but as we were already in it, it would have been madness to opt out at that stage so we just let it roll on. The contributions were not a huge chunk out of our pay, and as it was deducted before we saw our net pay it was just another deduction along with tax and NI.

The only time pensions were brought to my attention was when the company changed the pay-out age for women from 60 to 65. There were only half a dozen of us who would be majorly affected by that, and a challenge was put to the pensions management committee, but we lost so just had to suck it up.

Are you seriously suggesting you never spent any time thinking about where your income in later life would come from? Did you never even look at the pension statements your employer provided you with each year? Were you never tempted to figure out what the earliest was you could afford to retire? Did you never discuss with your partner what you'd do when you stopped working, when that could be, and how much money you would get from whom then? May be you are independently wealthy and didn't have to work out mundane things like that, but I would think most of us do have to do their planning, and most of us also knew all their lives that we can't just hope for the best and expect that when we get to 60 or whatever age we would get an unknown amount of money from somewhere but we'd be happily living off that unknown amount.........

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

I did know about the change of SP age (never had a letter, must have read about it in the press), but having always been a saver I wasn't unduly concerned. But I admit I had never heard of "contracting out" until I joined this forum, by which time I had already taken early retirement (voluntary redundancy) to care for my elderly parents.

Two remarks about this

1. you didn't bother reading your scheme brochure, or if you did read it, you didn't understand it and didn't bother to clarify it
2. whether you knew or didn't know is really immaterial as you had no choice (short of leaving the scheme altogether, perhaps). Your scheme was either contracted out or it wasn't.

Bogof_Babe

colsten wrote: »

Are you seriously suggesting you never spent any time thinking about where your income in later life would come from? Did you never even look at the pension statements your employer provided you with each year? Were you never tempted to figure out what the earliest was you could afford to retire? Did you never discuss with your partner what you'd do when you stopped working, when that could be, and how much money you would get from whom then? May be you are independently wealthy and didn't have to work out mundane things like that, but I would think most of us do have to do their planning, and most of us also knew all their lives that we can't just hope for the best and expect that when we get to 60 or whatever age we would get an unknown amount of money from somewhere but we'd be happily living off that unknown amount.........

Two remarks about this

1. you didn't bother reading your scheme brochure, or if you did read it, you didn't understand it and didn't bother to clarify it
2. whether you knew or didn't know is really immaterial as you had no choice (short of leaving the scheme altogether, perhaps). Your scheme was either contracted out or it wasn't.

I do take on board all your comments. However my employer was a fairly large private sector company, our pension scheme at the time we joined ("we" being myself and my husband) was a non-contributory final salary scheme, and I don't recall ever getting individual pension statements, just an annual glossy brochure outlining the state of play, number of current and deferred members, and the overall balance sheet.

The matter of my future was somewhat taken out of my hands when I was 50, and the opportunity of voluntary redundancy coincided with my parents needing care as they were in their 80s and becoming frail, and a fairly major surgical operation that would require a couple of months off work had I not gone for the redundancy option. Prior to that I had assumed I would work until normal retirement age, and therefore would have plenty of time for financial planning.

We don't live extravagantly, mortgage was paid off some time ago, and I had a good redundancy payment of the maximum two years salary, plus money I already had in savings. I knew I could draw my pension at age 55 (I actually left it until I was 62), and at the time I could get something like 8% interest on my redundancy money in a fixed rate bond.

I know I have been extremely fortunate, but I never obsessed about the future, which is probably "my bad" as they say .